Jordan Burroughs makes his stance clear about debate surrounding Carter Starocci and Gable Steveson's match order

Jordan Burroughs opened up about the debate surrounding Carter Starocci and Gable Steveson's match order at the NCAA Wrestling Championships 2025. The American wrestler expressed his thoughts about the possible reasons surrounding ESPN's decision to begin with the 184lbs match featuring Carter Starocci.

Carter Starocci expressed his disappointment in a post-match press conference after winning the title regarding the match order and revealed how, despite being one of the most anticipated matches where he was competing for a historic milestone of winning his fifth consecutive NCAA title, it was scheduled first instead of being the highlight of the event. Jordan Burroughs explained his stance from the perspective of the producers.

Burroughs explained how it is important for them to follow the order, and if they had scheduled Carter Starocci to compete in the last slot, then Gable Steveson would have been scheduled to compete in the second match, which would have affected the storyline as he was competing in a quest for his third NCAA title.

Moreover, Jordan Burroughs shed light on how having Starocci as the first match would help in the build-up of the event and keep the fans on the edge of their seats.

"They don't want to rearrange the whole weight classes, they want to always go straight up potentially, to alleviate any confusion from the crowd. What they love about having Starocci and Keckeisen as the first match of the night in the 184 pounds is it gives you the opportunity to do the build-up. If anyone's watched the entire production, at the very beginning we always have a really long intro, we talk about the city, we talk about the magnitude at the moment," he said. (1:25 onwards)

"Here's what now we get the transition into. We get the spin, the four or five minutes opening up the production of the entire show this evening, talking about the significance of Carter Starocci's fifth title whereas if he would have been wedged in a match-up between the line-up then we would only have 45 seconds going to the intro to talk about how significant the moment was and it wouldn't really do justice to how big a fifth title would potentially be," he added.

That is why he felt that it was the best decision to have Carter Starocci's match at the beginning of the entire line-up.

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Carter Starocci on being scheduled to match the order in the finals of the NCAA Wrestling Championships

Starocci at the NCAA WRESTLING: MAR 22 Division I Championships - Source: Getty

Carter Starocci spoke about the match order in his post-match press conference. He expressed his disappointment at not getting the opportunity to compete in the final match of the event, considering the fact that he was competing for his fifth NCAA title, a feat that had never been achieved before.

He expressed that his match was one of the most anticipated contests of the event and would have helped to elevate the sport to a wider audience had it received the necessary hype.

"We've been dominant all year. To put that match first for whatever reason ESPN kind of makes me laugh and giggle because of some of these rules that wrestling has in place, things like that it's just no surprise why wrestling isn't mainstream," he said.

Furthermore, he expressed how matches featuring highly anticipated clashes should be highlighted, as it would help the sport grow further by catering to a wider audience.